The „Lord
of the Rings“ is the biggest fantasy franchise in history and even 10 years
after it is unmatched by any of its competitors. No other series has such a
spectacular world rich with fantastic creatures and epic battles. The
expectations are high just because its such a beloved story. Once again after
last years start of the Hobbit trilogy Peter Jackson returns to middle earth
with the second part about the tale how everything begun.

The films begin
where we left the group of dwarves and the hobbit thief Bilbo. The orcs are
after them and they try to run away from them. They conquer Mirkwood and meet
the elf there. The beginning feels rugged. Too many short cuts and no real
explanation. It just starts without giving you time to grasp everything,
getting a feeling for what's going on. The other problem is the new techniques
behind the screen. The HFR (48 Frames instead of 24) makes it more difficult
for the eyes do adjust. That took me around 10 minutes, which made it especially
difficult for me to get into. The woods are quite dark with spider attacking
them which didn’t help either. But afterwards the movies go on quite colorful
with beautiful shining woods, flowers and great landscapes. The eyes adjust to
this new feeling and you can easily immerse yourself even better than with
normal 3D movies. The higher frame rate enables the movies to feel more fluent without
any lag or colors dimmed by the dark shaded 3D glasses. The best comparison
would be with a video game.

Due the extensive
use of visual effects and the new possible camera flying and rotation create
astonishing pictures. The orcs and elves are also mostly rendered by the
computer which results in wonderful animations of gorgeous choreographed fights
beyond human possibility. One scene is especially worth mentioning. It’s
obscure reality in an overwhelming fashion and adds an unexpected funny moment
to a battle. It felt like the mini battle Gimli and Legolas had and was quite
well done. Legolas also has his great moments with his stylish fighting. There
is much eye candy going on for sure. There are also some aspect that doesn’t
look good. A few shots look like they were done hastily or at the end there is
some stuff happening with melted gold with actually looked terrible, but these
are just a few aspects. Most of the time it looks awesome, better than any
other movie out there.

The orc
style changed too. The first one had goblins which were portrayed in a white
skin with a small figure resembling more Gollum than real orcs. Now we got more
LOTR styled orc with brownish skin and ugly faces with their piercing and
sharp teeth. Also the fights are a bit more gruesome. We see many orcs killed
by chopping off their heads and of course elves die in the same manner. On
the other hand we don’t see much blood nearly none and even some funny jokes
which seems quite childish. It feels like LOTR rings a bit toned down but not
enough for children to watch. The movie is rated PG-13 like the rest of the
movies. The art style itself is awesome. Mirkwood looks nice and even Lake-Town
is great in its one way. It feels quite nordish with its snow flakes, the fish
and the heavy bearded men.

There are also
new additional parts added which were only mentioned the book. Mostly regarding
Dol Guldur a castle in Mirkwood occupied by a Necromancer and many orcs. Also
the role of the elves are advanced further with the new female character
Tauriel played by Lost actress Evangilne Lilly. First I thought those parts
would be a lot bigger and be one half of the movie, but these are just small
minor changes. These additional characters just appear in the regular scenes as
sidekicks and the portion of Gandalf fighting the evil Necromancer is barely 10
minutes long. Not that much in a 3h movie and probably just a little glimpse of
what will happen in the third movie. Also these parts are not entirely new they
are just more detailed than they were in the Hobbit. Peter Jackson used letters
and short stories of J.R.R. Tolkien to add this content. The only new thing
that he created himself is Tauriel the female elf who add a bit of a love story
that really fits well. It’s not too much bit a small faction. Also its great to
have a strong female character appear that does things like all the other
heroes.

The dwarves
roles are quite reduced. Of course you see them all the time but they are more
like puppets getting chased by orcs and Smaug. There are just a few moments
where they achieve something. The only of them you will remember is Thorin the
kind under the hill who has some good speeches and also a change of heart. He
is the face of the dwarves. The lesser time for them is good because they look
so much alike that you will get confused otherwise. That was probably one of
the problems of the first Hobbit movie in comparison to Lord of the Rings that
the characters weren’t so memorable besides Bilbo.

The best part of course is Smaugs chamber. It's
filled with gold so much you can’t imagine the worth of all of it. The treasure
lying there is as high as the mountain itself. The chamber halls are as big as
Moria with high ceilings and big pillars to support them. Smaug is terrific. A
true antagonist, the most powerful being out there and portrayed by the voice
of Benedict Cumberbatch. I shivered every time he opened his mouth. His scenes
with Bilbo are absolutely thrilling.

The music
enriches the scenes but isn’t quite as original and powerful as the soundtrack
from LOTR. It's quieter and harmonic instead of big fanfares suitable for this
kind of movie. People tend to forget that the Hobbit was never supposed to be
like LOTR. It’s a smaller story meant for kids. It’s about a group of
adventures fighting a dragon instead of epic scaled battles against the evil of
the world. Its are the small moments and dialogues that you will remember. Even
thought the scale was much smaller but even then this one breaks the bounds of all other
fantasy styled movies. There isn’t another movie out there that give you such gorgeous
scenes, fights and creatures.

The movie
ends rather harsh. It’s a cliffhanger but a quite bad one. It feels like the
movie is cut right in the middle of the best part. Of course it's supposed to
be like this especially because the movies never felt boring at any moment. You
just want to see more and that’s something I can’t be mad about. Peter Jackson
clearly outdid the first part and gets my expectations high for the last one
even though I really don’t know what is left for him to show anymore. The only
thing I know for sure is that I’m eager to see the finale.